I got a great deal on some jarlsberg today. I already had some gouda I got a deal on a while back, so I picked up some cheap extra-sharp cheddar and cheap pepper jack to take advantage of the temperature drop outside tonight here in East Texas.
I can put all my cheese on one rack, but on a lower rack I'm thinking about throwing on some sirloin steaks I got a deal (3.48/pound) to absorb an hour of the cold smoke, then put the steaks in the fridge before the wife cooks 'em tomorrow.
I've never cold smoked meat and cheese together. Any problems I should know about?
And is there a type of wood that would work for both?
Separate racks sound good, cheese on top sounds good, about the only problem I see is picking a wood. I like my cheese smoked with a light smoke wood like apple, but my meat with a heavy smoke wood like hickory or mesquite. I see from you other posts that you've done cheese, but aren't sure if you've eaten any yet. If you haven't had the finished cheese before I'd start with a light wood, it can soak up the smoke pretty good, unfortunately your meat will probably be on the light smokey side.
I agree with Kevin. I would not use a heavy wood on cheese.
I've put Hickory on cheese, but not Mesquite.
The Hickory was good.
Hickory is really good on cheese
Thanks for the help. I did this smoke last night before anybody got a chance to respond. I found a couple of threads here where some people mentioned that they liked pecan on cheese. And pecan works pretty well with beef too, so went with pecan. A little more than 2 hours (though I had some minor smoke problems that made it more like 2 hours or less, and I pulled the sirloins after 1 hour for temp sake.) Thanks again.